Government's lacklustre attitude as deadly as dengue itself

The dengue outbreak this year has been the deadliest in our history, accompanied by the same tragic story of authorities not taking the issue as seriously as they should. Despite repeated warnings from experts, the health ministry as well as the city corporations have utterly failed to take timely and adequate action, which has proved to be as deadly as the disease itself. The death toll this year has now exceeded 300, and nearly 66,732 people have been infected. Hospitals in the capital have been overwhelmed for weeks, and Shishu Hospital is now turning away children with dengue due to shortage of hospital beds to accommodate the high number of patients. Essential Drugs, the state-owned pharmaceutical company, is rationing supply to public hospitals, unable to meet the high demand for necessary saline due to the unyielding surge in dengue patients, according to a report by this daily.

Earlier in May, experts had warned that Bangladesh will witness a worse dengue outbreak this year and advised city corporations, municipalities, and union parishads to take preventative measures. Almost a month back, when the death toll was 106, we had urged authorities to declare a health emergency over the dengue surge. Yet, even as late as July 22, the Health Minister undermined the necessity of a public health emergency, stating that, "Such a situation has not happened yet that we are not able to give beds to the patients in the hospital, [that] we are not able to give medicines." How much worse does the situation have to get – and how many more children must die – for the authorities to treat the dengue situation with the urgency that it demands?

It is high time for the government to form an emergency response committee to combat further disastrous consequences. We urge the authorities concerned to create a centralised command chain with city corporations, the DGHS, and hospital authorities to coordinate their efforts, prioritising hospital management, curbing further spread of the disease through vector-borne disease prevention work, increasing the mobilisation of resources, and increasing the capacity of testing and treatment in all hospitals. We also back experts' recommendations to collaborate with the World Health Organization – which has been monitoring the situation worldwide – to learn from neighbouring nations which have successfully controlled the outbreak.